Fly Fishing

Brent · Newbie Joined: Mar 19, 2006 Posts: 1

Hey guys, Making a series of fly fishing videos that sarts in argentina in december. Need all the help I can get about fishing argentina. Rivers, lakes, transportation and any other expierences would be a great deal of help. we have lots of sponsers and i think this video series will set a trend for flyfishing, can't give away the secrets of the plots, but it will be something to grab if you see it on the shelves. Thanks alot, brent hodges

jeremy · Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 9:55 pm Post subject: yo

yo - do a search on this site for "argentina" .. my buddy alex lives there ... the articles will give you what you are looking for .. and then you can pm him .. and if he is not out fly fishing (which he sometimes does for like a month or 2 at a time) .. i am sure he will pm you back ...

i am going out there around the same time frame as you .. maybe we will cross paths .. cya.

jeremy · Posted: Wed Aug 02, 2006 10:05 pm Post subject: wrh

wrh --- you have spent some time in argentina too right? i have drooled over the pics on your personal site many times .. and you are very humble in the respect that you never mention the things you have done .. but when i visit your site via your signature link - [url]http://robinflyfishing.250free.com/[/url] - i think to myself "wow, this guy has really fly fished all over the world..... i am sure i am not the only one who has peaked at your site and thought .. "wow, he's done some killer stuff"

so -- if you don't mind -- would love to hear about some of those pics and some of the areas you have traveled .. were you a guide in all of those places? ... you really took some great shots .. especially since allot of that stuff on your site was pre-digital .. so i assume it was 35mm .. nice work ... fill us in.. if you don't want to that's cool too.

Shaq · Posted: Thu Aug 03, 2006 7:38 am Post subject:

Wrh is out fishing right now while I am at work...and he's not even feeling bad about that right now...I always forget the things he has done and seen like when we were filming the carp video and he turns to me and says, "this is like fishing Browns in New Zealand" and I respond...almost Cool

anyways, I will point him to this post when I speak to him later today to get a report.

You can also check out the DVD Trout Bum Diaries as it is a great run through Patagonia.

wrh · Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 8:29 am Post subject:

Brent email sent. I hope this helps, let me know if you need other info.

Jeremy, I too look forward to fishing with you. Maybe this fall/winter on the Salmon.

Here is some background on my trip down there. I spent 10 weeks in Argetina many years ago (1990) visiting a friend who was guiding down there. he still goes for a week each year with a paying group. Argentina is a stunningly beautiful country, in Patagonia at least with very friendly people. I fell in love with spanish while there, although sadly I didn't keep up at it. One can eat some of the best beef in the world down there. Most of the fishing that I did was streamer fishing since the rivers are full of pancora, a freshwater crab, similiar to our crayfish and the trout love them. There is some good evening dry fly fishing and nymphing always works. Dry fly fishing for me was limited to hoppers, beetles and fishing the scum lines on the rivers. If anyone ever sees a scumline or backeddy covered with foam watch very carefully for noses, as some big fish will feel safe enough even in the middle of the day to feed under that cover. Sometomes the fish would venture into the sloughs and would be very spooky and tough to catch. The wind can be brutal down there. The country looks very much like the eastern side of the rockies, high desert so there are only trees by the rivers and the wind can howl. I only fished a handful of waters since I was limited in transport. One of the highlights for me was doing three days of fly out fishing with a wealthy american who invited my along. We fished some harder to get to lakes in the region and got into some decent fish. Spin fisherman which is mostly what he catereed to did much better on the lakes that us bank walkers, but it was a blast. Until last year I lugged around a 35mm camera which was heavy, but it took great pictures. I sure do wish that I had the digital video that is so easy to use and trasnport with my back then, it would have made for some killer fish tales.

When I graduated college my gift to myself was 6 months in NZ (1998). I knew two people down there one on the North Island and one of the South. I spent about 1 month in the North and the remainder in the South. What was great about NZ was the people, exceptionally friendly and the waters. I have never seen water so clear or beautiful in my life. The fish could be very very spooky, but if you could get you're cast to them you could usually get them to take, as they weren't that picky. A lot of the fishing down there is sight fishing were you might walk 10 miles a day along the river and fish to 2-8 fish which are all 22"+. I'm sure that I walked past many smaller fish, but I did n't see them. After a while one knows what water to walk right past and what water to slow down and really look at. I usulaly used long leaders 14-18' and moslty nymphs, size 12-16 PT's, Hares ears etc. My best trip as I would backpack for 10-14 days on a river system, was a treeless river valley full of big fat lake run browns. I averaged landing 3 fish a day with non under 24" on dry flies for a week. I missed a bunch and spooked a few, with some days more fish and some days none landed. I was using 18' leaders and large cicada patterns and if I could get my fly to the fish there were no refusals. It was awesome. During my next trip I saw a huge fish ~36" and I spooked it. I came back a few hours later and blind fished the pool from the tail out, no takes. I was working a deep undercut bank and nothing. I let me concentration lapse at he head of the pool that I thought I had covered as the big nose came up and my fly went down. The hard part about fishing for such big fish on dries is waiting to set the hook. You had to count 1-2-3 and set. So needless to say I pulled it right out. That fish shot out and under a boulder, it still bothers me to this day. A local ranger with whom I stayed at his house showed me pictures of this guy from VT who would fish there every year or so and he had these 32, 34 and 35 " brown all caught on cicada's. Unreal fish, that came up from the sea! Today I hear that digimo has taken that water. What a shame. One of my pals who is a kiwi guided on the Tongoriro, and I stayed with him for a while. The Tongoriro is similiar to the Salmon, but it has better flows in teh summer so fish are in all year. Many of the best spots in that region were hard to get to unless one has $ for a chopper so needless to say I didn 't. My buddy who guided there showed me some of the pictures that he had and there were some nice fish to be had. He also showed me some of his secret spots, one was a small feeder spring creek full of large rainbows. He did not let me fish there as this was his lively hood. Making a living in NZ is not easy for many kiwi's so I never pushed it with him or anyone else. Fishing on that river was just like the Salmon, nymphing with heavily wieghted flies and indicators. Some of the amazing things about NZ when I was there 98% of the water is pure so you can drink it without any problems. 20 million sheep 3 million people of which 2 million live in greater Auckland. If I talked with someone for 3-5 minutes I often got an invite to stay at their house, the people were that friendly and open. So needless to say the people are increadibly hospitable and interesting. They have a great hut system and many many hiking trails. One can tramp as they say without a tent by staying at the huts. It can get very wet especially on the wet or west coast of the SI. They get upwards of 300"'s of rain a year. If I could go anywhere to trout fish again it would be NZ hands down, althought after seeing the Trout bums in Patagonia, that would be fun to do again.

It's funny but I have to say that although I have fished in some far off places, there is a I think an underappreciation of what is local, here right at our finger tips. Maybe were always looking for a new experience or some exotic trip, but we have an abundance of quality fishing within a days drive on most any place in NE. Yeah we don't have tons of 25" trout in most rivers, but with the great lake fisheries we do. Here I am now with a family (so I can't fish as often as I once did ), but I can get Salmon, lake run browns, Steelies from the fall to spring in the GL tribs. Fair to good trout locally, with high quality dry fly fishing for larger trout in the Delaware, Hoosatonic and Farmington Rivers, great smallmouth , carp, and other coolwater fishing locally. I haven't had much opportunity to fish for saltwater and that is a whole other excellent world that is all around us. That is one of the things that I love about this site as it has a lot of what is around us and what maybe a great trip to do when we can swing it.

Until next time.

jeremy · Posted: Fri Aug 04, 2006 9:12 am Post subject: great

great stuff - wrh -- thanks... you have had some amazing experienes and that probably only scratches the surface (not accounting for western usa, eastern usa and others .. canada etc..)

IN REGARDS TO "we tend to overlook and not appreciate local stuff .." .... i agree ... and here is an interesting point in regards to argentina .... to back that up.

- many people go to argentina in search of the salmon .... not so many people know that all of those salmon down there were actually stocked from ... guess where ... Maine ... yup .. that strain of landlocked salmon originated from Sebago Lake Maine (20 minutes from my house) ....... so, with all they hype, it can sometimes be easy to think "the grass is always greener" .... and, i do the same, and that is actually part of the fun of it all ... with that said ... i try not to overlook or take for granted what is available to ... because many people would love to have "my" fishery and its equally true that i would love to have tarpon to cast to every day ... but we can't "have it all" .... so i try to really appreciate what I have .... and I do enjoy dreaming of what others .... and maybe if i am lucky .. i will get to deeply understand "my" fishery ... and get a chance to understand a little of other peoples fisheries ... and maybe even get a whack at taking a few casts in some of those "far off places" ... anyway -- you have a rich history in the pursuit of "fins with flies" ... very cool stuff .... i wish you had had digital technolgoies available then too .. but maybe, in the end, just having the 35mm digitized .. preserves a little of the mystic...